Building and Maintaining Relationships

‘Building and maintaining the relationship,’ it might seem to simply to some, yet the mechanics of it are quite diverse and complex, or so I have realised this week.

Strong business relationships with the client and their stakeholders are the key to success in PR, without them you have no clientele and no work. But like any relationship you must be willing to share, give and support not just take.

I have come to realise that the best way to build a relationship and maintain it is to develop more than a business relationship. I don’t mean this in a sense that you hang out on the weekend. I mean that you as the practitioner understand the client’s life and get to know them. Remember their passions, milestones- babies, illness, promotion- it may seem simple but it’s the little things that count.  

This will help you to understand what makes your client ‘tick’. I recently attended a meeting with one of Perth’s leading high-rise developers. It became evident to me that the client was very laid back and liked to listen and enjoyed us providing him with a list of suggestions for certain campaigns. He was not the sort of man to express what he wanted. This was refreshing and allowed for us to get creative with our ideas.

When building and maintaining a relationship with a client is it important to understand what medium to use, when its right to email, phone or attend a face to face meeting. I don’t think there is anything worse than building a relationship via email. I don’t think it sustainable and I think you become a face behind the screen and nothing else. Hence why I choose to phone over email in most circumstance. The minute you pick up the phone, you become a person, you have a personality, tone and emotion. During the week, my understanding that phoning was more beneficial then email really became evident when I had journalists getting back to me straight away and remembering my name and who I was when I called at a later date. I found that building this relationship gave me a ‘one up’ over other. So much that at the end of the week, one of my colleagues asked me to get some contact details for a journalists, who she was unable to get contact details for. I rather surprised myself when within 5 minutes I was able to fulfil her request. Saying this I think sometimes its beneficial to use email. For example when fact checking or asking a simple question. There is no need to bother your client with a phone call. Of course when the need is there, you get out of the office and go see your client face to face. One of my mentors visits his clients on a weekly basis, just to touch base.

Being seen is so important in building and maintaining this relationship and developing yourself as a respectable and trustworthy PR. This week alone I have attended multiple outings. I helped in the activation of the McWrap Patch, attended a opening and assisted in the filming for a cook off between Kymba from 94.5 and The Standard head chef Chase Weber. You never know what advantages showing your face might bring. In this case we got to eat this delicious dish that will be on the menu for Breast Cancer Care WA long table lunch.

It is important that we build and maintain these relationships with Grunig’s and Hunt’s PR Theories in mind. I believe that two-way communication is important in PR. Not only does it allow for a balanced and mutual understanding but it also allows for your message to be expressed.           

As an end thought I would like to leave you with a quote from Tony Robbins “To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others."

 

Thanks

Georgia

 

 

 

Bring on the next chapter

This week my internship placement has come to an end and I can’t help but to feel sad but also excited as I prepare to enter the ‘real world’. Entering the real world has always seemed so far away, but now its here and to be honest I’m nervous. Very nervous in fact! Finishing university after four years is like the end of a new chapter but the start of a new one!

Being apart of this internship experience has been much more beneficial than I first anticipated. I was finally given the opportunity to put all my theoretical knowledge into practice. I feel so privileged that I had the opportunity to intern at such a wonderful organisation (Curtin), in a team that has been so friendly and supportive right the way through. The past three months has flown by and I feel so much more confident in my ability to successfully carry out public relations practices in a professional environment. I now have the confidence to pitch to journalists and clients, write captivating media releases and confidently organise a successful event. Some of the other tasks and activities I have been involved in during my time at Curtin include;

•        Media monitoring and media enquires
•         Social media management
•         Loud shirt day
•         John Curtin Medals
•          The Agency launch
•          The medical school celebration

Curtin has given me the opportunity to be apart of some amazing events and activities and I have loved every minute of it. Within the last three months I have learnt more than I thought were possible, and I’m so thankful for my opportunity. I went into my internship not knowing where I wanted to take my career, now I feel passionate about pursuing a career in events management.

Bring on 2016!

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Well not really, the title was purely to grab your attention. My internship experience was nothing but fulfilling, challenging (in a good way) and beneficial.

Not only did I experience having my media releases sent out to the West Australian, being apart of a major social event, participating in Perth Fashion Festival alongside a designer. 

I never walked into my internship carrying any expectations, but having a whole lot to learn and give. 

Working in-house is one of the elements I really enjoyed. I definitely think whatever industry I go into that I would want to stay in-house. I liked the idea of collaborating as a team and mapping out what we were aimed to complete in a four month period for Steph Audino. Going forward I think that my strengths lie within in-house PR work. 

After all the work put into my internship, I definitely think this whole experience was worth it. I learnt so many invaluable tools to the trade and I know that I am willing to keep learning as much as I can in the industry. 

Participating in this internship has allowed me to evaluate whether I really wanted to be apart of the PR industry and I know it's an industry I love and want to be apart of. I look forward to seeing how I will be able to use the skills and knowledge that I've learnt from the PR units completed whilst at uni and implementing them into my future endeavours in  PR. 

What environment do you think best suited to you in the future? Consultancy or In-house?

What do you mean the importance of social media still goes unnoticed!?

While at the agency I was asked to help them with their instagram account. I was surprised to see that still to this day there are companies which don’t realize the benefits social media can bring them! 

The importance of social media has been drilled into us for three straight years, we’ve made our own twitter accounts and blogs in order to get familiar with all the technologies available to organisations. However there are companies which still are unaware of how important it is, Jett themselves have no clear strategy for social media. They have an instagram account but no twitter or facebook page and their personal website has little to no information available to the public. However their instagram account has a much higher following rate compared to its follower rate which some will put down to having no clear strategy.

Jett agency instagram account (@jettfashionagency)

Everyone go follow!!

I found it very unusual that they didn’t have a facebook or twitter page but as my internship continued I realized why. The girls at Jett are extremely busy and social media just isn’t a priority. As part of my internship I took on the duty to manage their instagram which was a really beneficial as I was able to incorporate what I have learnt over the course of my degree into practice. 

When posting on the agency account I had to make sure I was always researching before every post was made, ensure I noted where the photos were from as well as mentioning the particular style or collection the clothes came from. I made sure I was posting consistently as well as posting around the times social media traffic is know to be at its highest. So far the Jett instagram is growing at a much faster rate than before I took on this role and this has helped show the agency how important it is to be consistent on social media in order to really reap the benefits. Although it will take time to really increase the followers to the point where it overtakes the number of accounts the agency is currently following, it will happen over time.

What are your social media experiences? And what are some of your techniques you have used to gain a larger social media following? 

You Learn More When Things Don't Go Right.

Last week I had the opportunity to help plan for and set-up an event for one of Mesh Marketing's client's- Nespresso. They were going to run their own training booth at the first official Good Guys Expo. This expo involved key store members from all Good Guys stores coming to the Rendezvous Hotel Perth Scarborough and in a round-robin format they would move in their groups from booth to booth learning about different products that they have to sell in store.

Now, don't get me wrong, this event did have many positives but I found the things that didn't go right the most useful to learn from.

The main element that didn't go quite to plan was communication- internal communication within The Good Guys organisation and then external communication between The Good Guys and participating organisations like Nespresso.

As this was the first-ever event of its kind for The Good Guys, I don't think the participating stores knew how official the event was and hence didn't show up. I am unsure if this was due to confirmation issues between the organisers and the stores or if it was just not clear enough to the stores the nature of the event. Once the store managers heard how professional this event was the were all deeply regretful for not allowing their staff to attend. Many stores had just not wanted their staff to attend due to not wanting their staff to be out of the store for too long. This really reiterated to me in a real-life example of how important it is to look after your staff and put them first because they are your most important stakeholders.

After chatting to Western Australian Nespresso Sales Promoter Tim Williams, I learnt that when he was trying to organise the details of the event, communication between the event organisers and him was non-existent. They were not efficient at all in responding to him up until the day before. To me, this is unacceptable. Working on the day it was very clear that communication had been poor as everyone was quite unsure of what was happening.

I did learn that events management can be quite stressful if not planned within an inch of its life and it does incorporate A LOT of hard manual labour!


Below are some photos of the Nespresso booth at The Good Guys Expo at the Rendezvous Hotel Perth Scarborough (note how deserted it looks due to lack of attendance):

TPFF 15

It doesn’t get much bigger than this event for the fashion industry in Perth. The Telstra Perth Fashion Festival 2015 (TPFF) was one of the many highlights I experienced through my internship.

Having never participated in TPFF before or worked with a designer, I was extremely intimidated leading up to the event, but eager to learn as much as I could.

While my role with Steph Audino for TPFF 2015 wasn’t revolved around Public Relations (although leading up to the event there was media liaising in regards to photo shoots and news articles), it was to help Steph in anyway I could and learn as much about the fashion industry as I could to see if it is an industry I wanted to be apart of.

The lead up to the night was all about organising the event as best we could.

As a team we:

• ·      Went to model castings
• ·      Decided the line up for the outfits
• ·      Went to model fittings
• ·      Finalised shoes, steaming etc.
• ·      Dressed the models for dress rehearsal 

On the night of the show I was apart of the back of house (BOH) team for the Steph Audino show on closing night. And BOH was chaotic, stinking hot and confined, yet it was exhilarating, fast paced and so much fun.

Words cannot describe the atmosphere backstage, it was electrifying and adrenaline pumping. Dressing models is by far an extremely stressful job; trying to zip, button, add belts, lace up shoes and make sure everything is 110% correct before they step foot on the runway.

Although no matter how stressful, it was an amazing experience and a success that I wouldn’t have been able to be apart of if I hadn’t undertaken this internship at Steph Audino. I couldn’t be more grateful or lucky to be apart of it. 

This event definitely re-ignited my feelings towards wanting to be apart of the fashion industry through public relations.

*note; photos of the runway can be found on the Steph Audino Instagram page: @stephaudinolabel 

Did you feel that your internship help you decide whether or not you wanted to pursue a role in the public relations industry? Why/why not?

PR May Seem Invisible But It's Always There...

Implementing the skills I have learnt in a theoretical based environment into the real world always seemed like a very daunting proposition to me. For many years, I have had the luxury of learning about Public Relations in a very sheltered environment where if a mistake was made it didn't matter too much because it was all make-believe. Now I would be applying what I know into a real organisation where if a mistake was made it is very hard to just backspace your wrong answer from your essay. It is out in the real world for everyone to see.

However, I was very lucky with my placement. For four years, I have worked with Sydney-based marketing company Mesh Marketing. They specialise in representing high-end brands across Australia- some of which include Nespresso, Moet & Hennessy, Movenpick and SKII. I have worked as a sales demonstrator for Nespresso which involved me going to events or into stores to demonstrate their products with the aim of selling.

I had always thought of Mesh as more sales orientated and had never actually thought too much into the PR side. I began to think more about it though and realised that although this organisation is all about marketing, there is definitely PR present. As an employee of the company, I began to think about the PR tools that they have in place and how they affected me.

I realised that PR had seemed almost invisible for me in the organisation for two reasons- 1) They are a very efficient organisation who I have been working with my whole working life so good PR is all I've known a company to achieve, and 2) As I've learnt more, I've noticed some areas have been lacking because they have been struggling to implement strategies across the country without a PR representative based in Perth.

Very excited about the prospect of nurturing and changing my own work environment, I discussed with Managing Director Gayle Clark a few ways that I could use my internship to aid the organisation on a PR level from Perth.

These ideas included:

- Creating a company Intranet for employees based in Western Australia to boost morale and the sense of team environment.
- Helping with the set-up of all commercial events and also internal events such as staff training days.
- Writing a "bible" for staff at Nespresso demonstrations across shopping centres with all information compiled into the one document (sections such as issues management and media guidelines would be added from scratch).
- Creating a social media presence for the Western Australian side of the company.

I am very excited to start as not only will I be gaining invaluable on-the-job experience but I will also be working to create a better work environment for myself and my colleagues.

First Big Event: Website Launch Party

Half way through my internship and myself and the two other interns I was working with, had the daunting task of putting together a website launch party for the Steph Audino brand (talk about nerve-racking).  Everything from booking a venue to organising catering, choosing a guest list to creating invitations and everything in between. Although all the prep work for the event was super stressful, yet thoroughly exciting (am I right?) the most intimidating part of the whole event was making sure we upheld the Steph Audino reputation.

Steph Audino (the person) has the most radiant and positive personality, which is reflected in the Steph Audino brand. She has built strong relationships with the media, the Perth fashion industry, ‘perthonalities,’ bloggers, hair and make up artists and clients. Therefore we had to make sure that her reputation was not tainted by any means pre, during and post the Steph Audino website launch event.

Fast forward to the night of the event. Everything that needed to be taken care of was and now was the patient wait for guests to arrive; kind of like the calm before the storm. My only expectation for the night was to expect the unexpected. For the most part everything ran smoothly (surprisingly, however I’m not complaining), there were some minor hiccups behind the scenes, with running orders of the evenings schedule but nothing the guests would ever have any clues about (winning).

Overall I thought the event was extremely successful (and completely different to writing an event strategy in a PR plan).  The event was featured in the STM, The West Australian, on Perth blogger’s sites. Photos of the event were posted all over social media, particularly Instagram, which we know is extremely important for any brand in the new age media market.  

Post event, when we were re-capping on the night in the studio. Steph gave me a piece of advice that I could not only implement in the running of an event, but in all aspects of PR.

“It’s not about what goes wrong that defines the night, it’s how you handle it that decides if it was a success or not” – Steph Audino

Attached are some photos of the event: